He’s Mad As Hell, and He’s Not Gonna Fake It Anymore…or Is He? Aaron Russo’s Democracy: Freedom to Fascism

Film producer, 2004 Libertarian presidential primary candidate, and independent documentary filmmaker Aaron Russo’s film Democracy: Freedom to Fascism starts out as an examination of the injustice of Income Tax and the illegality the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But it quickly devolves into an unfocused and occasionally confused screed, in which Russo seizes the opportunity to tap into Americans’ natural antipathy to paying taxes (after all, this is the nation that fought for its independence over just such matters) in order to deliver an alarmist rant about ID cards, implanted chips, the Patriot Act and America’s slide toward fascism.

I happen to buy much of what Russo is selling, particularly when he attacks the dissolution of freedoms under the rule of America’s Far Right, or when he points a finger at the conspiracy of the wealthy and privileged, of corporations and banks, to reduce political influence in the economic world to virtually nil through the imposition of inaptly named free trade agreements, or his clear and intelligent argument that “the war on terror is really a war on [individual’s] freedom.” However, he presents his case in a scattershot manner, failing to properly investigate a number of potentially interesting subjects in favour of apocalyptic pronouncements pitched so close to hysteria that you’d be excused for wondering if Russo has recently joined a doomsday cult. And there are moments when his notions verge on sort of yellow journalism that made theories of International Jewish Conspiracy so popular with Henry Ford and his fellow travelers in year’s past. Further, Russo’s arguments are undercut by the extremist nature of his claims. His penchant for hyperbolic exclamations becomes nearly comic. (“Income tax is enslaving Americans.” “My heart stopped.” “I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.”) I hesitate to psychoanalyze Russo’s fixation on internal organ dysfunction, but he could certainly stand to broaden his metaphorical palette.

His alarmism is matched by dubious interpretations of facts. For instance, when Russo claims that the development of the Federal Reserve, which is a private banking facility, is equitable with the politics of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto—the same Manifesto that urges workers to cast off their chains, that promotes the gradual dissolution of the state as society achieves utopian socialism, wherein the guiding principle is from each according to his ability, to each according to his need—you have to ask how, exactly, this jibes with the intense self-interest and private accumulation of wealth that are hallmarks of American-style corporate capitalism. It makes you wonder what Russo’s been sprinkling on his Libertarian Corn Flakes.

From a technical standpoint, the film is also a tad embarrassing. The editing of both music and image is—and I’m being kind here—amateurish. Screaming intertitles (“Freedom!” “Taxes!” “Tyranny!”) are Russo’s way of button-pushing his audience into compliance, but they’re more likely to get freethinking viewer’s hackles up. Throughout, the movie is so humorless that it makes you wax nostalgic for the good old days when Michael Moore was sticking it to the man.

Finally, having recently revisited the film, I couldn’t help but think that Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet explored similar material in a far more interesting way in the “fictional” classic Network. While Russo shares many of the qualities of Peter Finch’s Howard Beale, including rage, fear and paranoia, unlike Beale, Russo’s tirade lacks clarity and the intellectual will to follow some of his ideas to their conclusion. Rather than examine grassroots political movements that might lead to some sorta sea change in the way that we do politics and business in this Brave New World, Russo’s libertarianism leads him to settle for vaguely exhorting viewers to refuse to get a government ID card and to beware of stealthily implanted microchips. America: Freedom to Fascism is provocative and even intriguing, but when asked to move beyond emotional button-pushing and into something resembling constructive intellectual engagement of the crisis, it falls on its face.

Slant is reaching more readers than ever before, but advertising revenue across the Internet is falling fast, hitting independently owned and operated publications like ours the hardest. We’ve watched many of our fellow media sites fall by the way side in recent years, but we’re determined to stick around.

We’ve never asked our readers for financial support before, and we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or subscription fees. If you like what we do, however, please consider becoming a Slant patron.

All I can think of after the movie is wake up this is a time for action or we are going to louse all our founding fathers had given us. as direct decendendent of the 1776 reviloution I have looked at the copy of discharge papers from the reviloutionary war with amasment and pride. to be so unaware as to this fedrial resurve bank (scandles betrayel treasonest act) Im ashamed. I see no way to ask every one in washington or evan interested in politics to resing from office for being so lame not to see what is going on[ daaaa we have paid intrest because we barrowed money from this bank insted of doing it are self] I cant say any more Im so mad Im sickPosted by Anonymous on 2007-09-13 09:09:00

for myself i am just happy someone is using the big screen to offer some areas of interest that a lot of people are unaware of like losing our constitution (albeit in a painstakingly slow and not enforced way (yet))

for me documentaries don't usually change my view

but they raise questions which cause me to seek deeper answers by reading (gasp) and doing research

which leads me to more questions

i haven't seen the whole film but i am so excited by the titlePosted by Anonymous on 2006-08-23 06:39:00

Screenhub: Actually, I can think of two American sources that routinely produce a lot of material that fits your description--scepticism plus respect for the participants. They're ABC's "Nightline" (even now, after the stylistic revamp) and PBS' "Frontline" (and its sister show, "Frontline World"). Both programs are pitched at mainstream viewers, and are told as simply as possible considering the complexity of the subject; both programs let you know which side they think makes the better case, while allowing that the opposition may be making good points or, at the very least, trying to do the right thing in the wrong way. They aren't particularly sexy, but I find I get a bigger picture of the world from watching them than I do from most of the agitprop documentaries, which, as you mention, don't play outside the fortress. (Michael Moore may have done more for Bush than he did for Kerry, though of course there's no real way to quantify that).Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2006-08-22 07:27:00

Interesting.What a good documentary can do for me is humanise the participants.

But then I really take the point about films that try and discover something that the filmmaker already knows.

At the moment, the US seems to be knee deep in highly ideological films which are more or less entertaining tracts that deal very badly with the contrary case. Agitprop, as the Russians would have called them.

Not surprising - there is a war on.

They have a function - to rally and inspire the loyalists, to remind isolated true believers they are not alone, to force an unpopular point of view on mainstream media, to teach supporters the details of their cause - but they don't play outside the collective fortress.

I am much more interested in films that blowtorch everybody with the traditional weapons of scepticism and respect for the participants.

How come I can't think of any recent examples?

- david tileyPosted by Screen Hub on 2006-08-22 06:05:00

V: Lets face it goverments becomethe means to steal the surplus goods and energy from the people. Surplus and its theft is what the governments job has become and maybe always has been. The goverments finds ways to justify and fortify its continuity. The power of the people should be fortified and the power of institutions should be decreased. I can't wait to see this film.Posted by Anonymous on 2006-08-22 04:19:00

This is why I loathe being quoted: http://www.freedomtofascism.com/blog/afftfblog.html

By cherry picking a half dozen words from the review, they make it sound like I really dug this mess.Posted by Dan Jardine on 2006-08-20 03:51:00

I haven't seen an Inconvenient Truth (or Russo's film) but Todd's seemingly off-hand comment about "more slide shows" actually seems pretty on-target. Perhaps the reason why documentaries have an uphill battle winning over the "unconverted" is because we all know just how manipulative the motion picture medium can be. Therefore our guard goes up immediately when we watch one that we suspect might challenge our sense of reality.

A slide show, on the other hand, seems to involve less trickery. It'w precisely because they're unfashionable that they still might hold some power to sneak up on us and change our mind.

Of course, an Inconvenient Truth isn't a slide show but a film of a slide show, so if it's changing minds I don't know what that means.Posted by Brian on 2006-08-06 04:09:00

Wagstaff: "I will throw in with Todd though, and say that a fiction film has a better chance of making a dent."

I suspect you're right about that. People have their guard up with documentaries. Fiction is more seductive because it openly appeals to the unconscious.Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2006-08-04 05:54:00

Matt: Am I asking too much? Or am I asking the wrong question?

Those all seem like good questions to me, but I sure don't know the answer. In theory you'd think that a sound argument could convince someone, but I've never seen such a Road to Damascus conversion happen. Unless you want to count certain populist types who get swayed by whatever argument they heard last. Couldn't we ask the same questions about a book or any polemic? You guys probably see a lot more documentaries than I do. When alone, I will always reach for a documentary first because it's easier and quicker for me to watch. The same with books â€“ I read nonfiction more than fiction at about 10 to 1. It's just easier for me; fiction seems a lot more demanding and I have to read it much more slowly. What I get from a good documentary gets blurred with the effects of fiction in my mind. My attitude is--Fuck news â€“ I want information, even when it's emotional information. I can watch and enjoy a documentary that's completely antithetical to my political views and it'll end up reaffirming them. Providing they play straight with the facts, after hearing their best argument I will come away thinking "You see, you've just made my argument for me.â€ I guess the bottom line is: are people persuadable? Still unanswered after this comment I'm afraid. I will throw in with Todd though, and say that a fiction film has a better chance of making a dent.Posted by Wagstaff on 2006-08-04 05:27:00

Also, for what it's worth, An Inconvenient Truth convinced some family members that global warming isn't a liberal media conspiracy. It's really happening! (to go Mia Farrow for an instant) And they're quite likely some of the most conservative people in America.

Apparently, what it will take for the left to win the day is more slide shows.Posted by Todd VanDerWerff on 2006-08-03 23:17:00

Honestly, I'm a doc junkie and see as many as I possibly can, even taping obscure ones in the middle of the night on Sundance, but I can honestly say that more of my political views have been formed by fictional films (and by novels) than have been formed by documentaries or non-fiction books.

Though, unfair propaganda or not, Super Size Me DID get me to stop going to McDonald's.Posted by Todd VanDerWerff on 2006-08-03 23:13:00

Ed, I'd heard that Russo was struggling with cancer--he's in Germany seeking treatment, I believe--which is why I didn't delve into that any further, for fear of being charged with having bad taste. And the film had so many problems, I didn't think my review needed the distraction.

Matt, I dunno. These are not the documentaries of my grandparent's generation. The facade of objectivity has been stripped away, and many of today's so-called documentarians are really advocates for a cause. One of the things that bugged me about Russo's film is that he pretended as if he didn't know what he was going to find when he set off to study the history of the 16th Amendment and the legitimacy of taxing people's personal incomes. All his feigned shock at what he learns--soooo bogus. The guy ran for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination. He knew what he was going to find, and how he was going to spin it. If your documentary is gonna have a strong p-o-v, why not be honest about it?Posted by Dan Jardine on 2006-08-03 22:54:00

I didn't mean to imply Russo's doc was left-leaning (the phrase I used was "left-leaning or antiestablishment," and I think libertarian definitely falls under the second heading). I'm curious because the openly political, advocacy-minded doc has really come into its own in the the past couple of decades, thanks to Michael Moore and HBO nonfiction unit, mainly. But I have to wonder what the larger goal is, besides getting people who might already be inclined to agree with you to say, "Amen, brother." If persuasion of the unlike minded is generally impossible--and the spate of right-wing docs and documentary film festivals in recent years seems a confirmation of that--I wonder what, then, is gained, beyond the filmmaker's pride in having eloquently stated a particular position?

Am I asking too much? Or am I asking the wrong question?Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2006-08-03 22:39:00

Ignoring for a moment that I don't think that Russo's documentary is particularly left wing (I don't see Libertarians as left wingers, because they don't want government of any sort--they're of the Jeffersonian belief that the best gov't governs least. That's hardly left wing), that's a tricky question Matt, because most intelligent people I know have well-formed political ideologies, and I can't see how a documentary, no matter how convincing, could shake such a person loose of such beliefs.Posted by Dan Jardine on 2006-08-03 22:17:00

Dan, like you, I agree with much of what Russo says but not the way he says it, something the film's psychotic, opportunistic fans didn't couldn't glean from my review.

One part from your review sticks out:

"I hesitate to psychoanalyze Russo's fixation on internal organ dysfunction, but he could certainly stand to broaden his metaphorical palette."

According to one of the lunactics who've been emailing me non-stop since last week (accusing me of being all sorts of things, some more horrible than being a Republican): Russo apparently has cancer, and that we shouldn't be so hard on the film's crazed, amateurish quality because the man ostensibly directed the thing on borrowed time.Posted by ed gonzalez on 2006-08-03 21:50:00

Dan: This review points out a nettlesome problem with left-leaning or antiestablishment political docs (which is to say, the overwhelming majority of documentaries of that type): to what extent is this just preaching to the choir? It's inconceivable to me that anyone not predisposed to agree with at least part of Russo's message would seek this film out; it's equally inconceivable that such a viewer would find anything there that inspired a change of heart or mind. Michael Moore is, in my opinion, an extraordinarily effective filmmaker and propagandist (like you can separate the two in films like his), but I doubt his last movie inspired anyone to change his or her mind about the country's post 9/11 direction that wasn't already looking for reasons to agree with Moore.

Can you think of any documentary that persuaded you of the merits of a viewpoint you didn't already embrace? I don't mean, "I never liked Bob Dylan, but now I think I might buy a few of his albums, thanks to 'American Masters.'" I mean a sea change in one's political/social outlook. Any movies fit the bill for you?Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2006-08-03 19:49:00